Victorian teachers say they are ‘overworked’ and ‘underpaid’ forcing them to quit

Fed-up Victorian teachers say they are “overworked and underpaid”, with serious incidents of aggression from students – and parents – forcing them to quit the profession in droves.

Victorian teachers are quitting the profession in droves, saying they are “overworked” due to chronic staff shortages, as well as experiencing serious incidents of aggression from students and parents.

Teachers from state and independent schools have detailed a litany of complaints about their working conditions, saying they are being “pushed to their limits”.

There are at least 3468 education positions advertised on the state government’s jobs portal, including teaching and principal jobs as well support staff such as assistants and admin roles.

It comes just a week after the Herald Sun revealed more than $50m in compensation had been paid out to Victorian teachers and tertiary staff who were injured on the job in the past two years.

A recent Monash University statewide survey of 8000 teachers, who are union members, found only three-in-10 teachers, principals and school support workers intended to keep working in public schools until retirement, with 40 per cent considering leaving.

A teacher, who worked at a secondary school for more than 15 years, said the demands of the job were so “overwhelming” that she was forced to quit.

“I just felt so overworked and stressed all the time. My weekends were spent at my computer preparing lesson plans and marking assignments,” the educator said.

“On top of that, teachers are dealing with mass shortages, aggressive parents, being underpaid and students being out of control.

“A father yelled at me during parent teacher interviews, I was in shock and had to hold back my tears.”

Staff members are experiencing stress, injuries and burnout leading them to quit. Picture: Brendan Beckett

A primary school educator, who also recently left the profession, said she had been injured by students on several occasions.

“My anxiety was through the roof,” she said.

“I was forced to evacuate the classroom to protect myself and the students from an extremely aggressive child.

“The child bit me and threw objects at me and other students. I had bruises and feared for my safety … the school’s leadership team did nothing to assist.

“I was pushed to my limit.”

A secondary teacher said staff were unable to take time in lieu due to staffing shortages and other increased demands.

“Staff are struggling to take it because of teacher shortages,” she said.

“What we need is to be paid fairly and the state government needs to do more to keep the teachers they have rather than incentivising new ones.”

Australian Education Union (AEU) Victorian Branch president Meredith Peace said: “Victoria is currently dealing with unprecedented teacher shortages, with unsustainable workloads and increasingly complex classroom challenges leading to many principals, teachers and education support staff becoming burnt out and leaving the profession.”

Education Perfect curriculum specialist Kelly Hollis said: “The Victorian government recently introduced mandated time-off-in-lieu to motivate teachers to support extra-curricular activities, but this results in teachers taking time off when they need to be in class, further exacerbating the shortage.”

Opposition education spokeswoman Jess Wilson said: “Teachers are burnt out, the workload is unmanageable and there is nothing being done to retain the current workforce,”

But a state government spokeswoman said: “Since 2019, we’ve invested more than $1.6bn in initiatives to support and grow our school workforce – including more mental health and wellbeing support for our hardworking teachers and principals.”

“Our investments are working, there has been a 23 per cent rise in enrolments for secondary teaching qualifications thanks to our scholarships and Victoria’s teaching workforce growing by 2.3 per cent last year – the largest increases of any state or territory,” she said.